Folks,
Today was the invitation race .
It started in a light breese of around 6 knots from the south with an incoming tide.
The incoming tide creates a current of around 2 knots going south the north parrallel to the beach.

So with the first leg working into the current many of the fleet choose to work the
up the beach in shallower water. This in itself was still a bit of a lottery as the
breese was patchy with some stronger corridors further away from the beack.
The first rounding of the windward mark had Hans KloK in the lead with Mark Presdee in second followed by Martine Kooyman & Frans Von Marle, Wouter, Matt Mcdonald and
Marcus Towell.

By the time the boats converged on the gate at the bottom of the downwind
Matt Macdonald had moved up into 3rd followed by Martine & Frans and Marcus.

By the second windward mark rounding Hans had established a huge lead. Was was over a
hundred metres past the clearance mark before the next boat even got to the windward mark.
So hans was being followed some way back by Martine & Frans and then Matt. Matt pulled his spinnaker
early and carried it for the reach across to the clearance mark and while Martine and Frans
pulled their kite Matt pulling his kite first paid with him sqeezing past Martine & Frans
and then openning a lead of around 30 or 40 meteres.

So Matt had managed to climb into second place for the spinnaker run to the bottom mark but
Hans had a very handy lead. Matt had a blinder of a downwind rounding the bottom mark ahead of Hans.

The breese was building and the third rounding of the windward mark had Matt then Hans then Martine.

As the breese built it got uo to 13 knors.

Bt the end of the fourth work we had Hans back in the lead followed by Martine and Frans then Marcus.

Now we have the final downwind run for the finish and Martine with Frans were pulling out all stops and
burried the bows up to the front beam several times under spinnaker and still recvering. I've attached a pic.
With the breese having shifted towards the east it was becoming increasingly dificult to cary
the kite and while everyone tried, sooner or later it had to be put away with some very quick
reaches to the line.

From what I could make out the finish order was Hans, Martine with Frans on the pointy end, then Marcus.


Every one seems to be happy , friendly and having a really fun time. No doubt the stress levels will rise and the real commpetition begins.
So far I've taken around 240 pics over 2 days. Some of these have been uploaded onto the F16 web site.

2007 F16 Global Challenge

Check out the web site or some more pics.

Phill, thanks for the update and the pictures, hard to believe those guys saved it when they put the spinnaker pole tip under! Was Matt sailing alone? Have a great time, I wish I were there but you keeping us posted is the next best thing!

I think Matt met up with a crew. I take it the whole regatta is on elapsed time, there is no correction between solo and uni?
Maybe I'll start an argument but IMO the boat sails better 2-up <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />
=

They had 2 deep dives within 60 seconds. I think they are still recovering from the first dive.

Still, this crew had the boat for only for 4 months and according to their own comments sailed it less then 15 hours in total. I think their speed around the course was excellent considering how new they are to the boat. Despite the "rough egdes" like these dives.

Excellent sailing Martien and Frans !

Wouter

good job phill great photos. so I will be the first to ask where are the vipers? and are there any results we can view? hope all are having great time and good luck to all competitors i wish i was there.

That is one big face plant!!! There doesn't appear to be very much breeze though?

Greg Goodall indicated in an email received today that they were a bit late getting the Viper there and hoped to be competing by Wednesday.

His email was in response to a query I sent AHPC a while back about the weight issue. He indicated that they had decided to trade off the weight for increased stiffness in the beams and bouyancy in the hulls, which he believes will be the biggest F16 hulls being built. Achieving these objectives at lower weight would have required more carbon and a higher price. He believes the big advantage of the Viper will be how hard it can be pushed in strong winds.

Mark.

Interesting...

Story of the Vipers is as MarkMT says. A real pitty.

The pics are of the invitational race and none of us were very serious about it. I guess working out the results is in the same spirit. For example Matt choose not to finish when he was sailing 1st or 2nd when he quit. Apparently he considers it bad luck to finish the practice race.

Wind were very light during the first halve of the race and about force 4 (13 knots) in the second halve. Water was flat and not many boats did nose dives or capsizes. I guess being new to the boat is showing a little in their 3 nose dives, they recovered from all however and they were DEEP !

Wouter

is there a published list of entries anywere ?

http://www.f16worlds.zandvoortonline.com/entry%20list.htm

I'm hoping to come down to the beach sometime this week and have a look at how you guys are doing.
(If anyone is interested in shooting some video while racing, I've just bought a DigitalHero3 and am itching to try it out <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> ).

But that is waaaay out of date.

Any results from day 1 ?

The results from day 1 are on the event website. It was a rough day sailing with waves around 2.5 mtr high and a wind South-south west around 9 to 10 mtr per sec with gusts into 12 to 13 m/s per second. There where some guys trying to fly the kite but it was difficult with the waves coming from the side and a view of them did a test on there lifejackets if it still good to where and floats.
Also foto's available on the WVZ site at www.wvzandvoort.nl

looks intense!!!!
I want to know results!

Found it:
http://www.f16worlds.zandvoortonline.com/Uitslagen%2013%20aug.pdf

what happened to the last boats with the dnfs?

Hi all,

gee it looks pretty rough <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif" alt="" />. Can anybody tell me what the windspeeds are in Knots this is generaly the measure used in OZ so I can compare it. Launching is allways tuff one up in the conditions shown in photo's.

Must say looks like sloop rig conditions to me, the two ups had better pull their fingers out as the one ups are doing well and will only get better from my experience in lighter winds and flatter water.

Well done to Marcus on the Formula Catamarans Australia Blade, he has only sailed one for a couple of hours on flat water previously. A massive learning curve going on, mind you he is a bog boy <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />, so will be enjoying the conditions <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />. Obviously Haans is not a little guy either, practice and local knowledge are hard to beat.

Wish I was there <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />. Didn't realize it would be so hard to not be involved, keep the info coming <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />.

10m/s is 19.438445 kts

12m/s is 23.326134 kts

which is top 5 to bottom 6.

I use this website as it does most conversions: http://hemsidor.torget.se/users/b/bohjohan/convert/conv2_e.htm



Any data from the measuremnt sessions ?

Tomorrows the conditions will be very rough (25kts) so probably no racing then.
http://windguru.com/int/index.php?sc=19439

Thanks for the info on widspeeds, 25 kts. is a handful but most times we still race it in OZ. That is if the beach break is not too bad <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />. Guess that is a major factor at Zandvoort <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />. in decision to race.

Good luck all, remember that having fun is the point of being there <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />. Not breaking boats <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />. Could be good for Greg on Viper he may not miss so many races. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />